Beavers gnaw Bulldogs

Friday

Jan 4, 2013 at 11:07 AMJan 4, 2013 at 11:11 AM

It didn’t take observers at Dennis Lesh Sports Arena very long on Thursday night to figure out who was going to win between Pratt Community College and the McPherson College JV. The Beavers bolted into the early lead, extended it throughout the game to as many as 25 points, and eventually settled for the convincing 85-64 victory over the visiting Bulldogs.

Neil DePew

It didn’t take observers at Dennis Lesh Sports Arena very long on Thursday night to figure out who was going to win between Pratt Community College and the McPherson College JV. The Beavers bolted into the early lead, extended it throughout the game to as many as 25 points, and eventually settled for the convincing 85-64 victory over the visiting Bulldogs.In their final shakedown cruise prior to the opening of the Jayhawk schedule, PCC opened the game with a 8-0 run. McPherson was not able to get on the board until the 16:00 mark, and trailed 8-3 at that point after hitting a long-ball. In the next minute and a half, Pratt’s Javis Flynn buried back-to-back trifectas to push the lead to 14-3. Through the middle of the 1st stanza, the Beaver defense was keeping McPherson at bay, forcing them into crazy shots in the lane or long-range, low-percentage efforts. Eventually, the Bulldogs got a few shots to go, but the Beavers kept forcing the issue, especially on the offensive glass, and so took a 41-24 lead into the halftime locker room.It was more of the same in the second half. Within four minutes the lead had ballooned to 20, and at the midway point of the second frame, PCC reached their high water mark with a 66-41 advantage.The final 10 minutes was just playing out the string, with reserves getting most of the floor time for the Beavers. At the final horn, PCC still had an 85-64 lead to qualify for the win.The game was decided in the paint, as McPherson had no answer for PCC’s bigs—either keeping them from scoring, or competing on the boards with them, or finding ways to shoot around them in the lane. PCC had total domination on the glass, outrebounding McPherson 51-23. They scored 20 second chance points to only 5 for the Bulldogs. Ralph Abraham had a monster game for the Beavers, leading PCC with 21 points and earning the double-double by yanking down 11 rebounds as well. Point guard Javis Flynn was also in double figures with 12 points and Devin Callon contributed 10. Overall, the offense was balanced for the Beavers as 10 of the 11 players who saw floor time broke into the scoring column. Defense for PCC was also solid, especially in the first half. The Beavers held the McPhersons to a mere 33% from the floor and 25% from behind the arc. With Pratt’s inside dominance, the Bulldogs only real chance was to be on fire from long range, but they were not. At 10-4, PCC takes the plunge into the Jayhawk Conference next week with games against Cloud (Monday, home), Seward (Wednesday, there) and Dodge (Saturday, home.)STATSPCC 41 44 85McP JV 24 40 64Abram 3-0-1/2-7; Javis Flynn 2-2-2/2-12; Rogers 1-0-0-2; Devin Callon 2-1-3/5-10; Thomas 3-0-0-6; Ralph Abraham 6-1-6/9-21; Roberts 1-1-0-5; Downs 1-0-2/3-4; Stivrins 4-0-1/2-9; Hellman 3-1-0-9